Elon Musk's Starman Has an Unexpected New Friend at NASA

It hasn’t even been a month since SpaceX jettisoned Elon Musk’s Tesla into the void, but in that time, the car and its driver have managed to incite some seriously strong opinions. Now, a NASA astronaut tells Inverse his take on the big launch — and he’s actually a fan.

“It was very exciting to watch that launch and think about the capabilities it might bring us further down the road” astronaut Ricky Arnold, who’s about to rocket up to the International Space Station (ISS) on March 21, tells Inverse. “I’m sure [Elon Musk] was not disappointed to have a lot of people looking at this beautiful Tesla cruising out in space with a big astronaut in it.”

This will be Arnold’s second sojourn in space. He previously logged 12 days, 19 hours, and 29 minutes on board the STS-119 Discovery from March 15 to 28 in 2009. In that time, he completed two spacewalks, accumulating 12 hours and 34 minutes in those alone.

In his downtime, Arnold says he’ll be listening to music and staring out the window back at Earth. While there’s no chance of him catching a glimpse at Starman veering deeper and deeper into space, he’ll be getting the most enviable view in the solar system. We wish him lots of luck.